Flash* US Congress Woman Shot

[benedictaoo]

Lets just clear this up right now-- freedom of speech is not to blame for this and if we police what people say and ban certain rhetoric while allowing others. it will not make this stop.

 

[MoreCoffee]

There's a good case for linking political assassinations and political violence to the level of heat in recent political campaigns.

By the way, isn't it usually the nutty people who perform the assassinations? So it doesn't tell us anything to observe that this would be assassin was nutty; the same was true of the folk who assassinated Lincoln, Kennedy, M L King Jnr, and Robert Kennedy. They were all weird people, some were certifiably insane.

 

[benedictaoo]

I think it's dangers rhetoric saying this was an assassination. But what ever.

He's not on parr with the Kennedy assassination and that is how folks are making it out and it's wrong.

 

[Davidnic]

There's a good case for linking political assassinations and political violence to the level of heat in recent political campaigns.

By the way, isn't it usually the nutty people who perform the assassinations? So it doesn't tell us anything to observe that this would be assassin was nutty; the same was true of the folk who assassinated Lincoln, Kennedy, M L King Jnr, and Robert Kennedy. They were all weird people, some were certifiably insane.

Sure. But we do not know that it is responsible in this case. It isn't always. For every James Earl Ray there is a Mark David Chapman.

So we need to stick with what we know until we know otherwise.

If there is a valid case to be made, and there is, that the rhetoric is too vitriolic and charged then it can be made without appealing to what we can not prove about the gunman.

 

[MoreCoffee]

But the measure of political heat is obvious and the would be assassin is more a symptom than a thermometer for the level of the heat.

The rhetoric - especially for one looking in from the outside - is horrendous. The level of hyperbole, misrepresentation, violent allusions and violent imagery is frightening. Having an attempted assassination is no surprise in the climate created by the over the top rhetoric that's been bandied about recently. The tea party's rhetoric is damaging USA democracy.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Well argue all you want, but calling people communist, baby murderers and not real Americans, isn't helpful.

I believe that the rhetoric of the pro-life movement help to justify in the minds of those who shot doctors and others who performed abortions.

I think the rhetoric needs to be toned down, and I've been saying it for a long while now, but it only seems to be getting worse.

Jim

 

[Davidnic]

But the measure of political heat is obvious and the would be assassin is more a symptom than a thermometer for the level of the heat.

The rhetoric - especially for one looking in from the outside - is horrendous. The level of hyperbole, misrepresentation, violent allusions and violent imagery is frightening. Having an attempted assassination is no surprise in the climate created by the over the top rhetoric that's been bandied about recently. The tea party's rhetoric is damaging USA democracy.

As a moderate who has severe problems with many, many tea party views, I disagree. I sat and saw the same venom and rhetoric as people were just as violent in their rhetoric toward George Bush.

The over the top rhetoric is not recent or one sided. To call it the tea party's rhetoric is to show that there is an agenda. It is extremist rhetoric on both sides.

There are many examples from 2000-2008 of the same type of violent talk directed at the last president. And there was the same for Clinton. I had a girlfriend during the Clinton era whose father constantly talked of a "revolution coming" because of Clinton. Same talk the tea party has now. Almost exactly.

And When Bush was in office I know more than a dozen students who talked used violent images or references in relation to him. And both of those, the father and the students, would quote some politician or radio personality or pundit as the origin of the rhetoric.

It happens all the time and is wrong all the time because it prevents real dialog when it gets to this point. But to paint it as at some kind of high point right now is just wrong. To associate this madman's actions with it is also wrong without proof.

It is the same as blaming it on heavy metal or video games.

 

[AMDG]

The over the top rhetoric is not recent or one sided.

And to blame this over the top rhetoric for a tragedy is beyond naivete. Sometimes a paranoid sociopath is going to be violent no matter how much soft or "kumbaya" music is playing. There's simply no connection between the "real world" and the weird world of a violent mentally unbalanced person--in this case it seemed to make no difference--this violent unbalanced person had an "axe to grind" with the Congresswoman over something completely different than the tea party talk.

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

So, even if this rhetoric had nothing at all to do with this attempted assassination, is it something that should be defended? Should we support people who use phrases such as hunting progressives, trading ballots for bullets, reloading instead of retreating? Is it wrong to disavow that sort of talk and try to return to civil discourse?

 

[tadoflamb]

So, even if this rhetoric had nothing at all to do with this attempted assassination, is it something that should be defended? Should we support people who use phrases such as hunting progressives, trading ballots for bullets, reloading instead of retreating? Is it wrong to disavow that sort of talk and try to return to civil discourse?

Or at least have some sort of honest introspection?

 

[Davidnic]

So, even if this rhetoric had nothing at all to do with this attempted assassination, is it something that should be defended? Should we support people who use phrases such as hunting progressives, trading ballots for bullets, reloading instead of retreating? Is it wrong to disavow that sort of talk and try to return to civil discourse?

The desire to return to civil discourse is great. Personally I think any kind of rhetoric like that prevents actual discussion. But I see seeking to find in the rhetoric a cause for the assassination without proof as a continuation of the rhetoric.

 

[MoreCoffee]

...
The over the top rhetoric is not recent or one sided. To call it the tea party's rhetoric is to show that there is an agenda. It is extremist rhetoric on both sides.
...

The news reporting in Australia (and we're hardly a left wing nation) has consistently shown the most egregious examples as coming from tea party leaders and candidates.

 

[Davidnic]

Or at least have some sort of honest introspection?

And that is what we need to do, on the rhetoric on both sides as well as how we take care of the mentally ill.

 

[MoreCoffee]

And that is what we need to do, on the rhetoric on both sides as well as how we take care of the mentally ill.

AND, even more pointedly, gun licensing.

 

[Davidnic]

The news reporting in Australia (and we're hardly a left wing nation) has consistently shown the most egregious examples as coming from tea party leaders and candidates.

Well there have been others since 2000. Ratcheting up and spiraling down all the time. From the people who believe the Loose Change thing to people who think the president is not a citizen. The extreme rhetoric from conspiracy and violent talk is on all sides.

 

[tadoflamb]

And that is what we need to do, on the rhetoric on both sides as well as how we take care of the mentally ill.

Exactly.

AND, even more pointedly, gun licensing.

Or asking ourselves if come-shoot-an-M-16-with-the-candidate campaign events are really a good idea.

I mean it's really been nuts around here lately.

Like I said, I was already grieving for my community before this happened.

 

[Davidnic]

AND, even more pointedly, gun licensing.

Yes states should follow the laws on reporting mentally ill disqualifications to the database. And if that is not enough they should review other actions. But start off with following laws actually in place and consequences if they don't.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Well there have been others since 2000. Ratcheting up and spiraling down all the time. From the people who believe the Spare Change thing to people who think the president is not a citizen. The extreme rhetoric from conspiracy and violent talk is on all sides.

Yet the examples you keep referring to are from the right are they not?

It isn't as though the right or the left has a lock on lunatic fringe members or extreme rhetoric from some members but the tea party does seem to have a near lock on having the leaders of the movement competing with one another to be the most extreme.

That's what it looks like from the outside.

 

[Davidnic]

Like I said it is not my intention to excuse rhetoric that prevents actual dialog. But I think before we say this particular gunman has tea party connections or influence people wait for the facts.

Now, if people want to say it is all out of wack I agree with that, and I think it has been for some time.

 

[MoreCoffee]

But we're NOT saying that he was a tea party member - he may have been incapable of joining any movement without being spotted as unbalanced. The issue isn't being in the tea party or any other party. The issue is that the rhetoric has raised the political temperature so high that lunatic members of society will be energised by all the violent buzz.

It's the over the top misrepresentations, hyperbole, and violence oriented rhetoric & imagery that's got to stop.